Retina Touchscreen Shortage Causing iPhone 4 Supply Problems?

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We all know about the – now infamous – bizarre pre-order canceling mails that AT&T and Apple have been sending to some folks who had pre-ordered iPhone 4s. Both companies had their sales servers go down and it seems there was a huge crush on them. Things may be worse for Apple customers – as the high demand may be compounded by short supply. An analyst claims that there is a shortage of the touchscreens used in the iPhone 4.

Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Rodman & Renshaw Inc. told the San Francisco Chronicle that the touchscreens were bottlenecking the entire iPhone supply process. Mr. Kumar had previously predicted that Apple could produce 4 million iPhone 4s a month, but he’s cut that number to just 2 million a month. By comparison, Apple officially said they’ve sold 600,00 iPhone 4s on pre-order already.

Toshiba had previously made the touchscreens for the iPhone, but with iPhone 4′s new super-high-res Retina displays, it’s believed that LG is manufacturing the displays. We’ll know for sure once a reputable source like iSuppli takes apart the device.

This isn’t the first time that we’ve seen phones held back by the screens. HTC has had supply issues with the touchscreen for both the HTC Desire (on US Cellular) and the Droid Incredible (on Verizon), which they blamed on Samsung, who makes their touchscreen displays.